Jahangir's World Times First Comprehensive Magazine for students/teachers of competitive exams and general readers as well.
Pakistan the nation resides uneasily alongside Pakistan the state, and not only is the nation in deep trouble, and has been since independence, but the state of Pakistan is also crumbling, raising the question, to be addressed later, as to whether the state can support the idea, or the idea can sustain the state.
After 9/11 the official and establishment Pakistani narrative was the country could, surmount its economic difficulties with outside assistance and take its rightful place as an ally of the West and become an anchor of the Islamic world. This was also the view of the George W.Bush administration, which had begun to rebuild relations with Islamabad.
This optimistic narrative has recently been challenged by gloom-and-doom scenarios that portray Pakistan as failed state, a malign supporter of radical Islamic causes and the epicenter of global terrorism. The National Intelligence Council in its dialogue of global development projection 2015 mentioned that the South Asian strategic relations would be defined by the growing gap between India and Pakistan and their seemingly irreducible hostility. As India will be the unrivaled regional power with a large military ‘including naval and nuclear capabilities ‘and a dynamic and growing economy. The widening India- Pakistan gap’ destabilising in its own right’ will be accompanied by deep political, economic, and social disparities within both states. Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated, and dependent on international financial assistance.
The decisive shift in conventional military power in India’s favour over the coming years potentially will make the region more volatile and unstable. Both India and Pakistan will see weapons of mass destruction as a strategic imperative and will continue to amass nuclear warheads and build a variety of missile delivery systems.
In 2004, a project by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) came to a cautiously optimistic conclusion about Pakistan. Completed after Musharraf’s third year in power it looked at the prospect for change and reforms in Pakistan, dealing mostly with macro-political and economic factors, stressing the importance of rebuilding Pakistan’s institutions. Pakistan’s external relations and American interests were the framework for the analysis:
The two and a half years since the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 have intensified the internal pressures Pakistan faces. The US decision to start its antiterrorism offensive by seeking Pakistani support was based on the presumption, widely shared in policy and academic circles in the United States, that Pakistan is central to the prospects for stability in South Asia. This study bears out that assumption. Every major aspect of Pakistan’s internal stresses that we examined’ the economic prospects, the role of the army and of political parties, the role of Islam and of the militants, and even the tensions between states and regions’ is linked to developments outside Pakistan’s borders. Positive scenarios from the point of view of key US interests ‘regional stability, diminution of terrorism, reduced risk of conflict with India, and nuclear control’ all involve a stabilized Pakistan and a strengthened Pakistani state. If one adds US economic interests and hopes to the list, the importance of a Pakistani revival is even
Stephen Cohen’s study, published in 2004, warily concluded that Pakistan may have reached the point of no return along several dimensions and that extreme scenarios were no longer inconceivable. I gave the establishment-dominated system a fifty-fifty chance of survival, but specified no time line, and also set forth a number of indicators, all of which were blinking bright red by 2006. The book anticipated Musharraf’s demise and set out the problems that would be faced by a successor government.
There is also an Islamist narrative which sees Pakistan as the vanguard of an Islamic revolution that will spread from Pakistan to India and then to other lands where Muslims are oppressed. The language is eerily reminiscent of the Marxists of the 1970s, who saw Pakistan as a vanguard of an Islamic-socialist revolution.
Of the serious studies of Pakistan written over the last few years, none predict failure or success, with most opting for some intermediate ‘muddling through’ scenario. Most also identify certain factors as determinative. One European study emphasizes the importance of state integrity.
Jonathan Paris, an American analyst based in Great Britain, has written the most comprehensive study in the prediction genre, Prospects for Pakistan, in 2010. He had not visited Pakistan before completing the study but nevertheless offers a methodology and analytical patience that sets his work apart. His time frame is 1-3 years, and his approach is to look both at challenges to Pakistan and ‘topics’ which seem to be of particular importance; the latter are roughly equivalent to the factors or variables deployed in this project. Paris’ list of challenges contains no surprises:
State fragmentation and loss of control over various territories that undermined the integrity, solidarity, and stability of the country
Security and terrorism throu-ghout Pakistan
The economy
Governance issues,
Including corruption;
Rebuilding the Pakistan brand.
The last item in the list is also used by Shaukat Aziz, the former Finance advisor and prime minister, and it is not clear whether this refers to Pakistan’s image abroad or the nature of the allegiance of Pakistanis to the state, and the purpose of Pakistan, what I have termed the ‘idea’ of Pakistan.
Paris’ list of ‘topics’ include:
The economy;
Civil-military issues;
Trends in Islamism;
The future of Pashtun nationalism;
The future of the Pakistani Taliban;
Pakistan’s relations with three countries: India, China, and the United States.
In the body of the paper there is also a discussion of demography, the in surgency in Balochistan, and other factors. Notable by their absence are discussions of the role of the media, the rise of civil society, the new role of the courts, and constitutional developments, although some of the latter, such as the 18th amendment, were still being formulated while the study was underway.
One of the most useful aspects of this study is Paris’ exploration of a range of futures for the main topics or variables. For the economy he examines both a “glass half-full” and a less optimistic ‘glass half-empty’ scenario; he does the same for civil-military relations, where three futures are discussed: a return to military dominance, continuation of the, present status quo, and a third scenario involving movement towards a democratic consolidation. There is less scenario building regarding Islamic trends in Pakistan, but he rules out either the emergence of religious parties as a dominant factor in Pakistani politics or a Taliban takeover. These are eminently reasonable predictions in the short time frame of the study.
In Masood’s worst case, none of this happens, the Taliban problem continues to fester, Pakistan-based militants continue their activity in Kashmir and elsewhere in India, leading to another India-Pakistan crisis, and as a result of these security problems foreign investment ceases to flow to Pakistan and, ultimately, the military again come to power in a new coup d’etats.
Farzana Sheikh, a Pakistani scholar resident in Great Britain, dismisses the rhetorical flourishes of ‘country on the brink’ or ‘failed state’ and argues that Pakistan’s problems stem from its very origins, and that the identity of Pakistan has never been clear nor has a consensus been developed as to the purpose of Pakistan. The failure of the economy, political incoherence, separatism, corruption, and the rise of extremists are all problems, or in Paris’ term, factors. However, underlying these are the absence of a national purpose, notably the ambiguous but generous role accorded to Islam since the founding of Pakistan which has restricted its progress ever since. She remains somewhat optimistic, buoyed by the rise of the new media, an active judiciary and legal community, and human rights activist who have tried to imagine Pakistan in a new way. As Benedict Anderson has argued, nations are ‘imagined communities, they can be re-imagined and at bottom they are ideas’. However, Pakistan the nation resides uneasily alongside Pakistan the state, and not only is the nation in deep trouble, and has been since independence, but the state of Pakistan is also crumbling, raising the question, to be addressed later, as to whether the state can support the idea, or the idea can sustain the state.
Bruce Riedel, a former American intelligence analyst with long contact with Pakistan, presumes but does not predict an Islamic militant victory in Pakistan. He points to Pakistan’s creation of, and collusion with, militant groups, which he believes has left Islamabad vulnerable to an Islamic Coup. Riedel dates the crisis back to the war against the Soviet Union, then in occupation of Afghanistan, but the collusion began much earlier, with state patronage of militant Islamic groups going back many years. Riedel sees Pakistan as ripe for change, ‘but it could he radical change for the worst’ and that the battle for the soul of Pakistan has never been so acute. He develops a scenario in which Islamist and Taliban forces push to the East, and establish an Islamic Emirate of Pakistan, virtually dividing the country between Islam-ists and moderate Muslims, and anchoring Pakistani influence in the Pashtun parts of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would be at stake, and relations with India would also worsen, as would relations with the United States. Riedel’s policy recommendation is that this is a future to be avoided at all costs, and that America must work with remaining moderate elements in Pakistan.
There follows seven recommendations each for Pakistani and American policy makers. The former involve a new social contract between the government and the people, the removal of colonial-era laws, major investment in education and health care reform, the reconfiguration of state and governance structures, bringing in the Army Education Corps and Medical Corps to meet educational and health targets, providing support for progressive religious groups in order to help f defeat the ‘idea of Talibanization’ defeating the communication strategy of the Taliban, closing down militant madaris, overhauling the police, law enforcement and intelligence services, reviving the peace process with India, and enhancing the security of the nuclear weapons establishment while enhancing civilian oversight over the entire nuclear establishment. The United States is offered a similarly comprehensive agenda, including developing a more comprehensive strategy towards Pakistan, avoiding condition-heavy aid packages, addressing the Kashmir problem and India-Pakistan relations, accepting Pakistan’s status as a nuclear weapons state, stressing education and health in American aid to Pakistan, helping Pakistan improve its civilian law enforcement capabilities, replacing drone attacks in KP with a ‘Humanitarian Aid package’ and, finally, creating an effective oversight mechanism for Pakistani aid and assistance programs.
The scope of Abbas’ recommendations is breathtaking, and point to a complete transformation of Pakistan to be led by Pakistanis themselves with full support by the United States. This, reflects the deep problems facing Pakistan, and the urgency of the reform agency, as seen by a thoughtful and expert former member of Pakistan’s police force. Abbas is cautiously optimistic, while the indicators are increasingly negative, and while there are credible ‘gloom and doom’ scenarios,’many things are going well’ notably the slow and sure transition to democracy since the January 2008 elections.
